Mini Projection-Mapped Landscape

This Instructable about creating a simple sculpture that is augmented with projection mapping, designed to run on the Raspberry Pi, built with OpenFrameworks.

Projection Mapping is a process that relies on knowledge of the physical space, graphics software, and installation of the hardware necessary to complete the illusion of precisely mapped light. There are a myriad of tools and methods available to projection map objects, some relying on camera-vision, and other auto-calibrating methods. My goal for this instructable is to streamline the process of creating a sculpture and having it precisely projection mapped.

Material List:

Projector Vivitek Qumi Q5 Super Bright HD Pocket Projector

Computer

Raspberry PI Model B+

Projection Mapping Software

Custom app written with OpenFrameworks.

Modeling Software

Rhino + Grasshopper

Sculpture Fabrication

MakerBot Duo PLA

Step 1: Sculpture Design

I designed a landscape with Rhino3D/Grasshopper. You can use any software you’re comfortable with. The projection software is designed for polygonal shapes and not optimized for curves, so if you do have curves in your mesh, or a highly-tessellated mesh, this will create more work in the mapping phase.

This design process could translated to another modeling software. I’m using Rhino3D/Grasshopper. The design is based on a series of points placed in space, which will be converted into a Mesh with the Delunay node in Grasshopper.

Open Rhino and Grasshopper.

Place a few vertices in Rhino’s 3D space by repeating the following process:

Type “Point”. Move the cursor the place where you want to place the point Click the left mouse button. Click the right mouse button to repeat the point command.

Once you have a group of points, select then in the Rhinoceros window. Then, in the Grasshopper window, create a Point collection by typing ‘Point’, and right clicking on the node and select ‘Set Multiple Points’.

Then, in Grasshopper, connect your point collection to a Delunay Mesh node. The Rhinoceros window will show the result.

For each new point you add to your mesh in Rhino, you’ll need to right-click on the Point collection in Grasshopper.

Add, move, and modify your points in Rhinoceros to create a form that you like.

I’ve also included a series of various formats of my landscape model for you to use.

Step 4: Install of-meshMappingExample

This software is written in OpenFrameworks/C++ running on a Raspberry Pi. The code will work on your desktop or laptop, as well. The app has tools for distorting a polygonal mesh imported from another software. The app has controls for a virtual software camera, rotation, translation, and manual vertex mesh-tweaking.